


Trying My Hardest

by fiddleogold_againstyoursoul



Category: Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:38:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4412393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiddleogold_againstyoursoul/pseuds/fiddleogold_againstyoursoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I tried many times, you know. To make that embarrassed blush reappear on your face.<br/>I tried as hard as I could. Even if it was just so you could choke on your drink and call me an idiot.<br/>I tried being gentle. You told me to stop coddling you.<br/>I tried being aggressive. I think it hurt you.<br/>Is it really okay for me to be around you? Am I trying too hard, or not at all? <br/>I did try...<br/>I want to see you try too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trying My Hardest

\---Zen---

I love seeing how one word from me can make pink flood his cheeks. I love seeing that little furrow appear between his brows and his lips curl into a scowl. I love how he calls me annoying.  
I wonder what he loves about me.  
\---Takafumi--- 

He's so annoying. He's insufferable. I can't tolerate him. It hurts. I want him to stop saying he loves me. I want him to stop loving me. I don't deserve that sort of love. I don't deserve Zen. Not someone like me.

\---Zen---

He's afraid to love me in return. I'm afraid he still loves Masamune. He's too jaded to see clearly. I'm too clear to see his jaded thoughts. I love him. I'm always trying to tell him that.   
He never tells me it in return.

\---Takafumi---

I push away because if I let him come too close, he'll see how broken I am inside. He'll see how many times I've shed tears over Masamune. I'm no longer attached to Masamune, but the memories linger. I'm scared to show him. I'm scared to open myself up to someone else again.  
I want to tell him I'm sorry.   
I can't accept his offer of love.

\---Zen---

Sometimes it's endearing when he pushes away. It makes me want him more. I love him. I know how fragile he really is. He's my bear, all bark and no bite, but I love him for it. Is it selfish that I want him to myself? I want him. I want Takafumi.   
I try so hard to make him feel the same.

\---Takafumi---

I'm so horribly broken. I'm shattered, but I selfishly want someone to try picking me up, to cut himself on one of my pieces. That's what I truly desire, but I'll never tell Zen. Zen is perfect, Zen is too perfect to be broken by me. I want him to see me as whole. But whenever he touches me, I shatter again. Into a million shards.   
I'm scared he will cut himself on one of my pieces.  
I'm scared he will hurt silently, pretending I never did it to him.

\---Zen---

It's such a strange thing to be so compelled to someone who never shows the same attraction. We're negative and positive, and it pulls us together, like magnets. It makes me so angry, yet so glad. As long as we're opposing each other magnetically, we won't be apart. I won't lose Takafumi. I won't let him go.  
I won't let him leave me.

\---Takafumi---

I can't leave even if I want to, but I want him to leave. I want him to throw me away and break me completely so I'm not teetering between the planes of Life and Death. I want him to cut me up so much I can't speak, to leave me alone in the darkness. In the cold. With the fragments of my broken heart. But of course Zen won't do that. Zen's too caring, too gentle.   
Zen won't ever break me, and that's why it hurts to be whole but breaking.

\---Zen---

I love the beating of his heart. It's irregular and fluttery when I press my ear to Takafumi's chest, but so beautiful. It resembles the march of a band, the beating of a drum. It pumps life into my Takafumi's veins, lets him live and breathe. I love him so. I love his racing pulse, his fluttery breathing like a butterfly's wings.  
I can't imagine if it stops.

\---Takafumi---

He listens to my heart, and he adores it, but I hate it. It beats to keep me alive, but alive is the last thing I want to be if it means I can hurt my Zen somehow. I wonder if he knows why I don't let him remove my shirts anymore. I wonder if he sees the bandages on my arm, the angry gashes of red under them. If I cut, I have less of a chance of hurting Zen...perhaps. I don't want him to see how horrifying I really am.   
I want him to leave, so he can pick up his life and continue with it again.

\---Zen---

He doesn't let me touch him anymore. Granted that he never gave me permission in the first place, I don't suppose it's much of an alteration, but now he gets mad, my Takafumi. He pushes me away and I swear there are tears in his eyes. He quietens down when I kiss him. He whimpers, and my heart feels like it's breaking.   
I still try, still try to make him feel like I love him. 

\---Takafumi---

He found the razor. I tried to deny it, but he made me show him. Show him the art I've made of myself, the twisting red lines up my arm like Bartholomew Kettle's from 'The Peculiar'. But it's not faeryfolk that has done this to me. It's myself, my demons. Zen promises me he won't let me do it again. He says he needs me to believe he loves me.   
Please stop him from saying that again.   
I'm scared I'll fade, and I'm scared I'll take Zen with me.

\---Zen---

He's been hurting himself. It's my fault. I should've taken care of him better. I want him to understand that I do love him. I don't let him go back to his house anymore. I don't even let him go anywhere but where I can keep an eye on him. I love him. I'm selfish, I'm possessive. I don't want him to hurt himself, or anyone else to see how he's been doing it.   
I love Takafumi, I love Yokozawa Takafumi.   
I try so hard to let him know that.

\---Takafumi---

He might as well have put a leash on me for all he's restraining me. I don't need his mother-henning. I want Zen to see that there are better people than me for him. I want him to remember and grieve his wife, I want him to take care of his daughter instead of gripping my hand so tight it feels like falling off. I say I want him to do that, but really, I'm selfishly glad he doesn't, I'm glad he's concerned for me.   
I'm twisted.   
I want better for Zen.

\---Zen---

I kiss him when he's nervous, when he's having a nightmare. I know he pretends he hates that, but the flush on his cheeks says otherwise. He sleeps better when I put an arm around him, as if I can chase away his demons. It makes me feel strangely powerful, like I have the ability to make Takafumi feel better every time. He's been fingering my ring finger, and I can tell he's wondering what happened to my ring.   
I took it off, I took it off because of him. I love him.  
I don't need a ring to prove my love for my late wife, or him.

\---Takafumi---

His kisses make me feel vulnerable. He places them strategically, he knows my most sensitive spots. The nape of my neck, the areas around my ears. My lips. He whispers gently to me at night, telling me to sleep, telling me he'll protect me. I don't let him see me cry when he does that.   
Zen doesn't need to protect me. I'm worthless, I'm nothing.   
I want him to know that I need to see him live a better life, raise a new family.   
I want him to kiss someone and feel them return in a thousand-fold, as I can never do.

\---Zen---

He looks almost scared when I place a hand on his person and press my lips against his forehead. He looks paler lately. He looks like he hasn't been getting enough sleep. I stay up with him now, so I can be sure he sleeps. It's not effective. He ends up waking because of nightmares, my poor Takafumi. He doesn't eat a lot either.   
I cook for him, so I can see him eat.  
I'll forever try to help him, in any way possible.   
I try so hard.

\---Takafumi---

I love Zen's cooking. I eat because he goes to such lengths even when we're both so tired after working so late into the night. I eat so I can see that tired smile that appears on his face when he watches me do so. Even though I want to scream at him that it doesn't work. I make myself throw it up in the bathroom upwards anyway. I want to do something, anything, so that Zen can be free from having to take care of me. I love him.   
But I'll never be able to tell him that.

\---Zen---

I found him half asleep on the couch when I came back tonight. He looked so peaceful, moonlight bathing his face and limbs in silver light. I picked him up...possible now because he's lost so much weight...and took him to sleep, admiring how gentle his chest contractions are as he breathed. Takafumi's so beautiful, but he doesn't like me saying that.   
He gets slimmer even though I watch him eat.   
Something's wrong.   
Did I not try hard enough?

\---Takafumi---

I've decided. I'm going to leave Zen.   
I want to tell him I'm sorry. I can't tell him goodbye myself, or I'll end up running away from my decision. I wrote a note for him. Hopefully he can understand that he deserves better. He tries so hard for the wrong person, the person who can't even give him half as much as he gives.   
I love him. Tell him I love him.  
Make sure he remembers that, and...  
Tell him I'm glad.  
I'm glad that he tried.

\---Zen---

I can't speak for grief. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't expect him to just leave.   
I'm choking on tears.  
The doctor says he can't be saved. The medicine's too strong. He's in a coma now, but he's moments away from...from dying.  
I screamed when I found him knocked out on the table.   
No, that's a lie.   
I thought he was sleeping again, sleeping so peacefully. Until I saw the bottle of pills in his hand. Until I saw the note blurred by tears that he left with his shaky blue handwriting.   
Then I screamed.   
I refuse to believe there's no hope. I can't.   
''Zen,'' his note read. ''I love you. Please don't be mad. Please forgive me. I was already dead when you found me. I'm just finishing it.  
Are you crying now, Zen? Don't cry for me. Cry for the years you lost trying to fix me. To fix the unfixable.   
I love you. I love you. I love you! I can't say anymore. Please raise Hiyo to be a good young woman. Do what I cannot and tell the world I loved it, tell it that I loved you. You never said anything, did you? About me not telling you I loved you? I'm really, really sorry, Zen.   
Goodbye.''  
I never lost anything being with him. I never let him think, for a second, that I would ever be mad at him.   
I want him back.   
It isn't fair.  
I don't...don't blame him...  
I blame myself.  
He says I tried enough, but...  
I didn't try hard enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please don't kill me.


End file.
